DISCOURSES EXPLORING THE SPACE BETWEEN TRADITION AND MODERNITY IN INDONESIA

There are three cultural layer in modern culture face in Indonesia, indigenous Indonesian, Hindu- Budha, Islamic, and coumpoun together in various forms. The first layer is an indigenous Indonesian culture, whichstill survives in a number of areas in a state which can be described as still very close to its origin. The second layer is the Indian, usually termed – Hindu-Budha. But over the greater part of Indonesia, in the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, the two earlier layers of Indigenous Indonesian and Indian cultures were overlaid by a third layer – Islamic culture, which penetrated Indonesian in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries.

Problem of contemporary Indonesian culture is the product of the confrontation of Indonesian and modern culture. The manifestation of modern culture were indicated man’s freedom of thought and inquiry, technical progress, economic evelopment, and belief in human right. Over the 32 years of development modern culture under Suharto, which were a significant shift from the various efforts at nation-building in Indonesia’s early years. This is not totally dissimilar to the way Dutch colonial development in Indonesia was once heralded as harbinger of modernity in a feudal archipelago rich with tradition, culture and religion. Indonesia has long been, and continues to be, the site of negotiations between tradition and modernity.

The discourses of tradition and modernity are perhaps best recognized at the national level and can be discerned in debates over such varied subjects as the morality of the youth, the value of the national curriculum in facing the challenges of the future, and the fate of traditional culture in the face of a global media, regional autonomy and development, religion and society. However, discourses of modernity and tradition are also carried out every day on a more minor scale: within groups, organizations, families, and even individuals. These discourses may not be recognized or framed in terms of tradition and modernity, but nevertheless cannot exist separately from this wider discourse and fill the space between tradition and modernity in everyday life in Indonesia. Taking various forms, and adopting a variety of positions, in the end these discourses all aim towards striking a balance between the continuity of tradition and the change of modernity in a growing and developing Indonesia.